An update from art.earth

Near events

First Friday: November 3rd

Andrew Stacey: Blockages and stuckages

First Fridays take place on the first Friday of every month, except January and August. First Friday is a gathering place for artists or anyone interested in the arts, an opportunity to share food and talk. Each month, after lunch, there is an informal presentation of work in progress by one or two artists who may be local or from far away.

November’s First Friday guest is Andrew Stacey, who is nationally known for his murals and community artworks, particularly the large scale city gate murals in Exeter. More recently he has co-created collaborative artworks in hospitals, housing estates, schools and parks in order to debate environmental and community issues.

Andrew says:

In this presentation / workshop I will briefly review key projects and explore a challenging contemporary case study.

My earlier projects may have been deemed successful, but in this presentation it will not be ‘business as usual’. Instead I will return to ‘beginners mind’ to explore issues around how we renew an art practice, maintain authenticity and work with blockages, and stuckages with light-hearted compassion.

I will invite everyone to participate in a short meditation/enquiry with a view to co-creating discussions to engage with new paradigm scenarios. Such as:

At what point does social engagement and environmental commitment, arguably so needed in our time, become self-destructive?

Is creative block or burnout a natural process to be accepted? Is it just nature’s way, or do we need to develop new strategies to deal with it?

Should we develop resilience and detachment in our practice? How do we avoid formulaic solutions ? How do we collaborate effectively?

I invite you to tap into your own inner wisdom and share your insights.

Liquidscapes callout: Nov 20

Liquidscapes: a call for proposals

art.earth and our academic partners Schumacher College and the Sustainable Earth Institute (Plymouth University) invite proposals to an international forum: Liquidscapes: tales and tellings of watery worlds and fluid states.

A three-day event bringing together creative thinkers and doers to explore physically and figuratively our watery worlds and fluid or transitional states.

Keynote speakers include writer Tristan Gooley (‘How to Read Water’), artist Amy Sharrocks (Museum of Water) and astronomer Prof. Paul Murdin OBE.

The event takes place June 20-22, 2018 at Dartington Hall, Devon UK.

The deadline for submissions is November 20 2017 (22.00 GMT). All proposals must be submitted online at http://liquidscapes.info/proposal-form/

We are particularly interested in submissions whose manner of presentation in some way directly performs the perspective they wish to offer: in what senses may we approach, in our behaviours, our speech, and our work, the notion of voicing water?

For full details visit liquidscapes.info

Reception / meet-the-artists

Currently in the Garden Room Gallery is an exhibition of work by New York-based Tessa Grundon and London artist Hannah Fletcher. As always the exhibition is open at Dartington Space weekdays from 9.00 to 17.00, and on most Saturday mornings.

This exhibition centres on ideas around topography, and is not to be missed.

The artists will attend a closing reception and meet-the-artist session on Friday November 24 from 18.00 to 19.30. As neither artists has a set of local groupies (well they probably do, but in both cases it's a bit far to come for a party...) please do come and join us and show your support for this fantastic work.

Further events

We've been busy developing a new offer of short courses and events for next year. We're not quite ready to publish dates and times and full details as yet, but below you'll find a trailer.

Also please note that if you were planning to attend Chris Drury's lecture originally scheduled for November 1, or the short course with Chris Drury and Kay Syrad, we have had to postpone this event until May of next year. If you'd already booked you should have been notified of this change.

First Fridays

First Fridays continue monthly, but don't come on January 1 because we won't be there! The first First Friday of 2018 will be on February 2.

December's First Friday will welcome photographer Fern Leigh Albert, a Devon-based environmental artist. She graduated from the University of the Arts London (London College of Communication) with a Postgraduate Diploma in Photography in 2013.

Since her graduation her project Wild Wood has been shortlisted for various photography awards and has been exhibited in group and solo shows internationally.

She also keeps animals and grows her own vegetables. When she's not tending to her flock of Hebridean sheep she's available for commissions, using film and/or digital.

Short Courses etc

Coming in 2018 are a series of residential short courses, weekend think tanks, and other events.

Thus far here's what we think we know:

In February Christos Galanis will host a weekend's fresh thinking around indigeneity in a workshop entitled Bone Songs: nourishing the non-human through indigenous relationships.

In May there'll be a short course with writer/poet Alyson Hallett, with a guest still to be confirmed but who is likely to involve embodiment and movement.

Also in May, the rescheduled short course Context and Form, Art and Writing with environmental artist Chris Drury and writer and book artist Kay Syrad. Chris will also give a talk entitled Wandering: earth, art and context. Tickets are currently on sale for both events. Read more here...

June is a blowout month with the 9-day residential workshop The Ephermeral River (dancing, speaking, singing, laughing). This is a Global Nomadic Art Project produced in partnership with our Korean friends Yatoo.

Following on from that is Liquidscapes, an international symposium and gathering of fantastic minds. There are few detail yet available, but don't forget the call for proposals remains open until November 20. As part of this event we hope to offer a special one-day art/science workshop.

And immediately following that is another five-day short course The Sea. We can't confirm any details on this, but we do know it will involve swimming. A lot.

We'll take a break over the summer, but will be back with more short courses in September and October. One of these will be a reprise of Transcribing Landscape, a course led by poet Fiona Benson and art.earth's own Richard Povall.

And to close the year in November we'll offer a series of gatherings, including another international symposium called Adorning the new biosphere: art and creativity in a post-carbon world.

Watch the website for further details as they emerge.

art.earth website

If you haven't already done so, you can support our work and gain benefits from annual membership. Our scheme embraces the Centre for Contemporary Art & the Natural World (CCANW) as well as art.earth. Become a member of one and you become a member of the other.

Membership benefits include discounts in the shop, access to information about professional opportunities, and many other things we hope you will find of benefit to your professional lives.

You can join any time.

Become a member